LOS ANGELES (CBSLA/AP) — A man was captured in Los Angeles Thursday morning for the killing of a Vietnam tour operator and one of her employees at a Las Vegas Strip hotel last week.
Thirty-one-year-old Julius Trotter was arrested by FBI agents and Las Vegas police Thursday following a pursuit in the L.A. area.
A photo of Julius Trotter from a previous arrest. (Las Vegas Metropolitan PD)
On the afternoon of June 1, 38-year-old Sang Boi Nghia and a man, believed to be her coworker, were found stabbed to death on the 21st floor of the Circus Circus hotel. Investigators believe the two were stabbed during a burglary, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Police said the attack probably happened about 2 a.m. on June 1.
The two victims were visiting Las Vegas as part of a tour group. Officials said police were summoned after hotel security went to the room at the request of tour members who became concerned that Sang Nghia and the man didn’t show up for a trip to the Grand Canyon.
Their Vietnamese tour group had arrived May 31 in Las Vegas from Los Angeles, authorities said.
Nghia’s daughter, Chau Nghia, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that her mother owned a tour business in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and the male victim was a tour employee. He was not immediately named.
On Wednesday, detectives with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI Criminal Apprehension Team identified Trotter as the suspect and worked through the night to find him. It is unclear why Trotter was in L.A.
Anyone with information on the case should call Las Vegas police at 702-828-3521.
The Ho Chi Minh City Television (HTV) is willing to collaborate with national broadcasterVietnam Television (VTV) to obtain telecast rights for this year’s FIFA World Cup.
An HTV source close to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said that its general director, Duong Thanh Tung, would send a letter to VTV on Thursday regarding their possible cooperation in the purchase of the 2018 FIFA World Cup broadcasting rights.
According to an HTV official, such collaboration is not unprecedented as the two television networks joined hands to buy the telecast rights for Germany 2006.
As VTV had a larger audience, it was in charge of paying two-thirds of the US$2 million asking price, while the Ho Chi Minh City-based broadcaster took care of the rest in that 2006 deal.
However, the national television station did not cooperate with HTV in the following FIFA World Cup editions.
As for the telecast rights for Russia 2018, the HTV official said that VTV can also cooperate with other cable television networks in the country, namely VTVCab, K+, SCTV, and FPT.
“We cannot let football lovers in Vietnam miss such a big party as the FIFA World Cup,” he stated.
As the world’s biggest football competition is only a week away, it would be difficult for broadcasters to sign advertising deals with local businesses as the latter need time to balance their budgets and set up advertising plans.
“However, HTV is willing to suffer some losses for the greater cause, which is serving our viewers and building up trust and reputation,” the official remarked.
In its 21st edition this year, the FIFA World Cup will be competed from June 14 to July 15 in Russia.
Switzerland-based Infront Sports & Media, distributor of this year’s FIFA World Cup telecast rights, previously offered all 64 matches of the championship at $15 million to Vietnamese broadcasters.
However, VTV said it would only pay $8 million at most for the rights, thus the negotiation has yet to conclude so far. The national broadcaster is the only station allowed by the government to bid for the telecast rights.
Nguyen Ha Nam, a senior VTV official, asserted to Tuoi Tre on Thursday afternoon that no agreement between the state television and Infront has been reached yet.
Rumors were circulated earlier the same day that the national broadcaster had obtained the telecast rights for the FIFA World Cup.
“We are exerting our best efforts to negotiate with the telecast rights distributor and will made an official announcement when the talks are complete,” Nam stated.
The prices of the FIFA World Cup telecast rights for the Vietnamese market have spiked over the last decade, from $2 million in 2006 to $7 million for the last games in 2014 in Brazil.
According to a document published by FIFA on June 2, Vietnam is the only among more than 200 countries and territories in the world where no entity has acquired the telecast rights of Russia 2018.
Many students visit the Temple of Literature in Hanoi to seek luck for their high school entrance exam.
On Wednesday morning, around 95,000 students in Hanoi started the high school exam which will end on June 10. It is seen quite tough due to the sharp rise in the number of candidates compared to the total target of the city’s high school in the year is just 63,050.
Despite the scorching hot weather, thousands of students came to the Temple of Literature after finishing procedures to attend the exam on June 6. Many went there along with their parents.
Many tried to touch the flamingo statue when they are banned from touching the doctoral steles which sit on the backs of stone turtles, hoping this would bring them luck.
Nguyen Kim Ngan in Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi, said her child had to study very hard for the exam, so she took her the temple as a way to help her to be more relaxed.
Lots of students used bare hands to write what they prayed for the exam on the wall.
A passenger was fined VND7.5m ($331) on June 7 for throwing a mobile phone and injuring a Vietjet Air member of staff after getting angry over a missed flight.
The 32-year-old man from Thai Nguyen Province checked in at Danang Airport at 10 pm on June 3 but he was told that his flight had already left and he would be transferred to another flight the following morning. He was angry that he hadn’t been informed about the change.
When the staff warned him to not smoke in the airport, the man suddenly threw his mobile phone at the member of staff which cut her eyelid. The security guards quickly came to apprehend the man and the employee was taken to hospital. The man later admitted that he had been drinking before and lacked self-restraint.
According to Vietjet Air, due to bad weather, 10 flights from and to Chu Lai Airport in Quang Nam Province were cancelled. Many flights from Danang Airport had to take off sooner than scheduled.
The take-off time of the Danang-Hanoi flight on June 3 was moved from 11 pm to 8 pm. Vietjet Air said they had informed the passengers but the man provided wrong phone numbers and didn’t receive the notification.
The Middle Airport Authority fined the man VND7.5m.
Two Vietnamese universities are among the top 1,000 universities in the world, according to the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings.
Viet Nam National University, HCM City and Viet Nam National University, Hanoi are in the list of world’s top 1,000 universities for the first time. — Photo topuniversities.com
Viet Nam National University, HCM City and Viet Nam National University, Hanoi are in the list for the first time, joining 60 other universities that are making their debut in the rankings this year.
The ranking was published Wednesday following an examination by QS of data from 4,763 universities in 151 countries around the world in 2018.
Viet Nam National University, HCM City is in the group of universities ranked 701st to 750th, while Viet Nam National University, Hanoi is in the 801st to 1,000th group.
Four US universities – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Harvard University, and the California Institute of Technology maintained their hold on the top spots, while the United Kingdom’s University of Oxford ranked 5th in the world.
The QS World University Rankings is an annual publication of university rankings by London-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). Being the only international ranking to have received International Ranking Expert Group (IREG) approval, the QS ranking is viewed as one of the three most widely-read university rankings in the world, along with the Academic Ranking of World Universities and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings evaluates universities according to six metrics – Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation, and Faculty/Student Ratio, as well as Citations per faculty, International Faculty Ratio, and International Student Ratio.
Professor Nguyen Huu Duc, vice director of Viet Nam National University, told online newspaper dantri.vn that the rankings proved the quality of training and prestige of the two Vietnamese universities were becoming increasingly recognised by the global academe and employers.
Researches conducted by Vietnamese universities were cited more and had a wider reach, as evidenced by their scores in the citation index which showed that lecturers of Viet Nam National University, Hanoi were cited an average 4.5 times each.
A convenience store of Bach Hoa Xanh Joint Stock Company in HCMC has deployed a model using robots to keep motorcycles on a trial basis for a month.
After pushing a motorcycle into the dovetail of the machine to have it locked and take a card, customers can shop comfortably without fear of their bike being stolen. To take the motorbike out, customers need to insert the card in the machine and then the dovetail will open.
Such a new model has some disadvantages, since a large space is required for installing a small number of four or five machines only.
Automated machines are seen in front of a convenience store at 124 Thoai Ngoc Hau Street in Tan Phu DistrictA guard places a motorcycle into dovetail of the machineMotorbikes are seen locked carefully.A photo of automated machines and motorbikes. Such machines will help stores reduce the workforce taking care of motorbikes outside
Growth in Vietnam remains robust but high capacity-use rates may limit further expansion, according to the World Bank’s “Global Economic Prospects: East Asia and Pacific – The Turning of the Tide?” report released on June 5. The country is forecast to grow by 6.8 per cent this year before moderating to 6.5 per cent in 2019 as capacity constraints become more binding.
In the meantime, economic conditions in developing East Asia and Pacific have for the most part remained favorable in 2018, including robust global trade, mostly contained borrowing costs, and sustained capital inflows.
Growth across the region remains solid and exports have surged in both volume and value terms. Private consumption has been supported by strong consumer confidence and rising household wealth in an environment of moderate inflation. Investment spending in the region has also been strong.
Regional financial markets have generally remained buoyant, despite volatility in early and mid-2018 related to the prospects of faster monetary policy tightening in advanced economies and escalating trade tensions.
Bond spreads in some countries have increased, following bouts of volatility in stock markets, but remain close to the low levels that prevailed in 2017. Domestic monetary conditions have tightened somewhat and tighter prudential policies have kept credit growth in check.
Domestic demand in China has been solid in 2018, reflecting robust consumption growth and recovering private fixed asset investment.
The stock of corporate debt has continued to decline as a per cent of GDP in the first half of 2018 but remains high by international standards. China recorded its first current account deficit since 2001 in the first quarter of 2018, consistent with external rebalancing.
Among commodity exporting economies of the region, an investment-led cyclical recovery has continued in response to higher commodity prices, improved confidence, and low financing costs.
Indonesia has continued to register strong growth this year, and growth continues to recover in Mongolia. Growth moderated in Malaysia but remains robust and broad-based.
In terms of outlook, growth in developing East Asia and Pacific is projected to ease from an upwardly revised 6.3 per cent in 2018 to 6.1 per cent in 2019. The modest slowdown in regional growth is largely due to the gradual structural slowdown in China.
Excluding China, activity in the region is expected to slow from 5.4 per cent in 2018 to 5.3 per cent next year.
The outlook is predicated on moderately higher commodity prices, strong but gradually moderating global demand, and incremental tightening of global financing conditions.
ANZ releases updated economic forecasts
With first quarter GDP growth at 7.4 per cent year-on-year, ANZ expects some pull-back in growth momentum towards a more sustainable rate of 6.8 per cent for 2018 as a whole, followed by 7.0 per cent in 2019. According to the ANZ Greater Mekong Outlook report released on June 1, first quarter growth was unseasonably strong, having tended to be at its lowest at the beginning of previous years and followed by an acceleration over the course of the remainder of the year.
In terms of production, the agricultural sector grew 4.1 per cent year-on-year; the fastest rate since the series was rebased in 2012. Industry also bucked historical trends by growing 10.1 per cent year-on-year.
Growth in industrial production has already eased. The introduction of new products in 2017 pushed up growth in consumer electronics, but now that production has normalized, favorable base effects have started to fade. In the absence of additional production capacity this year, ANZ expects real industry growth to moderate.
Growth in merchandise exports has also eased, reflecting trends in manufacturing production. Nevertheless, with an average increase of 15.8 per cent year-to-date year-on-year as of May, Vietnam’s exports remain robust. Imports, meanwhile, haven’t grown at the same pace, leading to a $3.4 billion trade surplus year-to-date. While export production is still supportive of growth, the net contribution of domestically-owned production has been limited. Indeed, the improvement in the trade balance is mostly attributable to the FDI sector.
Even so, the widening of the overall trade surplus has aided the central bank in rebuilding its forex reserves, with the government reporting reserves of $64 billion as of May, or roughly 3.5 months of imports.
Newly-registered FDI continues to pour in, though at $4.7 billion as of May is lower than the $5.6 billion in the same period last year.
After the US withdrew from the TPP, the remaining members have been negotiating the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). With Vietnam expected to uphold its commitment to pursue significant economic reforms, the prospects for more FDI are positive, ANZ believes.
Inflation has been on a gradual uptrend, reaching 3.9 per cent year-on-year in May. Food prices turned a corner at the beginning of the year, implying that all major CPI components are now contributing positively to headline inflation. Although transport costs have risen, they have not fully reflected the trajectory of global fuel prices. Meanwhile, health-related prices only rose 3.9 per cent year-to-date compared to 16.8 per cent year-to-date in the same period last year. If increases are delayed further, there will be heightened risk of higher price increases down the line. In the past, when health prices were capped over a prolonged period, the subsequent changes tended to be dramatic.
As such, ANZ expects inflation to stand at 3.6 per cent in 2018; still below the maximum threshold of 4 per cent set by the government early this year. The bank then expects inflation to remain on an upward path, reaching 4.2 per cent in 2019.
Summer has come along with heavy downpour, and with each bout of torrential rain parts of the city remain flooded for hours.
This has been a problem that Hanoi’s leading officials have been working to solve for years, and as yet have failed to find a successful solution for.
A downpour which brings around 50 to 100mm of water during a two hour period will likely cause flooding in 15 areas, according to the municipal Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Ha Noi Sewage and Drainage Company recently came up with the idea of building an underground pool at the crossroads of Duong Thanh and Hang Da streets, in order to prevent flooding.
The proposed underground pool which has been submitted to the municipal People’s Committee for feedback would be able to store 2,000 cubic metres of water.
Vo Tien Hung, the company director said that the pool will apply cross-wave technology from Japan, which uses polypropylene – a kind of thermoplastic polymer to soak up water. The company is asking Japan to work with polymer manufacturing companies to use domestically-manufactured materials to reduce costs.
He said that the environmentally-friendly technology is easy to install and construct. It is suitable for cities with limited land and funding such as Hanoi and HCM City.
Bui Ngoc Uyen, deputy head of the company’s external affairs and communication division, told Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper that if the proposal gets approval from local authorities, the underground pool will be a pilot anti-flooding solution for the Old Quarter area.
The water stored in the pool will then be used for firefighting, watering plants or cleaning roads, he said.
A leading official of the city’s Construction Department told the newspaper that the pool, alongside pumping stations, will help reduce floods in the area.
The department will first study the proposal to assess whether it is feasible or not, he said.
However, Professor Vu Trong Hong, former deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, is in doubt over the pool’s capacity.
“A 2,000 cubic metre capacity is relatively small and can only partly reduce flooding in narrow areas during light rain. If the rain is heavier and the pool is full, where will the water flow to?” he said.
Hong said that the foundation of the street in which the underground pool will be located must be firm; otherwise it will sink and affect the structure on the ground potentially causing a sinkhole.
There has to be a structure stopping water from flowing into the pool when it’s full. Otherwise, the foundations will become weak, he said.
“The best way, I think, is to connect it to lakes around the city, taking advantage of their storing capacity. Connecting pipes should be built to link lakes. For example, Thien Quang and Hoan Kiem lakes could easily be connected together. The water can then be pumped to West Lake or pour into the Hong (Red) River,” he said.
The anti-flood projects must be constructed before the rainy season comes; so they cannot be built now, he added.
Tran Huy Anh, an architect of Ha Noi Architects’ Association said that the pools should be constructed in the outskirts of the city, not in the Old Quarter, as the construction would cause chaos to local residents.
He thinks the proposal will be wasteful and not address the roots of the problem.
The idea of building an anti-flood underground pool has already been implemented in HCM City.
Earlier an underground pool with a capacity of more than 100 cubic metres of water was constructed on a pilot basis in Thu Duc District.
The chairman of agricultural firm Hoang Anh Gia Lai Joint Stock Company (HAG) has made another attempt to buy shares of the company after its share value plummeted.
Doan Nguyen Duc has registered to buy more than 15.2 million shares of the company on June 11 and July 9 after its share value dropped to the lowest level since its debut. This marks his second attempt to buy HAG shares, after his initial bid to purchase 20 million shares on May 8 and June 6 ended with the acquisition of only 4.8 million shares.
An insufficient financial arrangement resulted in the non-completion of the purchase, after which his ownership in HAG increased from 35.02 per cent to 35.53 per cent of its charter capital.
HAG shares, which are traded on the HCM Stock Exchange, dropped to VND4,420 (US$0.19) per share on May 28, their lowest level since HAG’s debut in December 2008. The shares are trading at around VND4,600 per share this week.
In his last transaction at the end of 2017, Duc registered to sell 23 million HAG shares between October and November for use as collateral to support the company’s efforts to restructure loans. The price of HAG shares at the time stood at around VND7,000 to VND8,000 per share.
HAG’s short-term debt reached nearly VND12.4 trillion by the end of 2017, exceeding its short-term assets, which were over VND8.8 trillion at the time.
HAG reported better business results in the first quarter of 2018 with a total revenue of VND1.03 trillion, up 25 per cent year-on-year. Its net profit reached VND56.6 billion, up 3.5 times compared to the first quarter of 2017.
Labor ministry report says 572 Vietnamese children sexually abused in first five months of 2018.
Parents and immediate relatives have to take greater responsibility in preventing child abuse, Vietnam’s labor minister says. – VNExpress reported.
Dao Ngoc Dung was responding to lawmakers’ comments and questions about a report that said 572 children in Vietnam were sexually abused in the first five months of this year.
The report, tabled in the ongoing National Assembly session by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, noted that the figure means that almost four children are molested each day.
Most of the molestation is perpetrated by a family member, a neighbor or a school employee, adults that the children are familiar with, the report said.
Expressing concern that around 1,500 child molestations are recorded each year in the country, Le Thi Nga, head of the legislative National Assembly’s Judiciary Committee, asked the labor minister “to speak in more detail as it is a matter of public concern.”
The report said 59.9 percent of sexual abuse cases involved a neighbor or an acquaintance, 21.3 percent involved family member.
So families need to pay more attention to their children, Minister Dung said.
“Fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters need to take more responsibility in this matter,” he added.
He said Vietnam currently has a hotline for people to report sexual abuse, and the labor ministry will review the national Law on Children to specify responsibilities of departments to increase collaboration between families and schools in preventing sexual abuse.
One sexual abuse case that got public attention recently was that of Nguyen Khac Thuy, 78, who was sentenced to three years jail last November for committing “obscenities” on two girls in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.
Thuy was found guilty for his behavior with the two girls, although as many as seven families had filed formal complaints about this molestations.
Thuy, who insisted that he was not guilty during the first trial, approached the appeals court for a lighter sentence, and was given an 18-month suspended sentence. The decision sparked widespread public outrage and an online petition for it to be reviewed got more than 45,000 signatures in a very short time.
The Supreme Court overturned the appeals court’s verdict last Friday and confirmed the original sentence.
More than 8,200 cases of child abuse came to light between 2011 and 2015 in Vietnam, including 5,300 cases of sexual abuse, according to official figures.
Experts have said that legal loopholes in the country have prolonged sexual abuse cases and even allowed them to be buried.
Miniso Vietnam plans to open 50 more stores by the end of this year and reach 400 by 2022.
The discount retail chain plans to enhance its distribution system in Vietnam with a 10,000 sqm warehouse in Ho Chi Minh City which will open within a few months. That will provide strong support for stores and a planned online operation.
Miniso Vietnam also has boosted its brand-name awareness among young consumers by having local singer Son Tung M-TP as its first brand ambassador.
The company entered Vietnam in September 2016 and has already opened 40 stores there – 17 in Ho Chi Minh, 19 stores in Hanoi, and four elsewhere. It is rapidly rolling out stores to cash in on Vietnam’s current 10.9 per cent annual retail sales growth, which makes the country one of the fastest-growing retail markets in the world.
The company says it recognises Vietnamese shoppers are moving from high-street shops to shopping centres and so it is adjusting its expansion strategy to include more malls.
It has reached an agreement with Vincom to open stores in the mall operator’s future developments in major commercial and shopping centres.
Products are priced between VND43,000 (US$2) and VND500,000, predominantly targeting consumers aged 18 to 35.
The brand has been accused of misleading consumers by describing itself as a Japanese brand when it is a Chinese company, owned by Chinese and selling products made in China with no apparent Japanese connection.
But that has not stopped it from opening more than 2600 stores worldwide, covering more than 62 countries and regions. Last year, its sales topped US$1.8 billion.
The company plans to open 10,000 stores throughout the world by 2022.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) has proposed a temporary blanket ban on crypto mining hardware imports, local news outlet VN Express reports today, June 5.
The MoF reportedly raised the proposal on Monday, alleging that crypto mining hardware can be used to launch new digital currencies that are “very difficult to regulate.”
VN Express cites recent figures from the Ministry showing that in the first four months of 2018 alone, over 6,300 cryptocurrency mining rigs have already been imported into the country. Compared with 2017’s total of 9,300 rigs, the year’s surge was noted by Vietnamese Customs, The Hanoi Times further reports.
Using cryptocurrencies as a form of payment was first declared illegal in Vietnam in late 2017, with legislation taking effect in the first quarter of 2018.
The government’s already stringent stance is toughening further still following reports this April of an alleged $660 mln scam involving two Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), said to have been headed by a Vietnam-based outfit.
The allegations claim that 32,000 investors were swindled out of 15 trln dong (about $658 mln) through sales of two ECR-20-standard tokens, Ifan and Pincoin. If proven true, the scam would be the largest crypto fraud to date.
In mid-April, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc urged the Vietnamese government and financial bodies to toughen the “management of activities related to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” warning that the crypto investment space is “evolving in a more complicated manner.”
Drivers of Grab, based in Southeast Asia, can now turn their cars into mini convenience stores. According to TechCrunch, the ride-hailing company has teamed up with U.S. startup Cargo to sell a selection of items to passengers during their ride. Cargo says drivers can earn up to $300 per month selling items such as snacks, drinks, beauty items, phone chargers and more.
Drivers can add a Cargo box, which includes free samples and paid products to their car, for free. They make 25 percent commission on all sales made, plus $1 each time a passenger places an order or free sample request on Cargo’s website.
Grab CEO and Co-Founder Anthony Tan said during an event to announce the launch of Grab Ventures, “As Grab turns 6, we are experiencing a period of solid growth. Grab is ramping up innovation in-house to scale faster as the leading O2O mobile platform in Southeast Asia. We’re always open to partnerships where it makes sense for our business, and will look to partner or invest in the right company that enables Grab to expand our business quickly, explore new technologies and build new capabilities.”
Cargo works informally with Lyft and Uber in the U.S., and this is its first international collaboration. For now, it is just available in Singapore, but a Grab representative said, if it’s successful, it will expand across Southeast Asia. The company aims to set up shop in 20,000 cars this year. In January, it claimed to have 2,500 cars operating in New York, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis, with 20,000 drivers in all 50 states.
Sign-up is free, and Cargo sends drivers a custom display that rests on their center console, offering a selection of snacks and essentials. On the top of the display case, there is a URL and an identification number that is unique to each car.
Cargo tracks sales and automatically sends a replenishment of inventory when supply is running low. Drivers get paid $.50 for each item they distribute, and the top 30 percent of drivers sell about 500 items a month. The majority makes at least $100 a month on average by selling items from Cargo.
As of now, the company said it has 10,000 registered drivers. So far, it has raised $5.5 million in funding this year.
In and around the Mekong Delta, school children will spend this summer moving rainbow-colored blocks and cartoon animals around a screen to get an early taste of computers in a program backed by Google.
The tech company is paying for Vietnamese students to learn some introductory programming, along the way perhaps earning some goodwill from Vietnamese officials who are taking an increasingly strict view toward global internet firms.
The Mekong Community Development Center will run the classes, which make use of Scratch, a very basic computer language that lets children create their own virtual games.
“To support Vietnam’s development in the direction of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 in the most effective and practical way, Google is focused on developing projects to build and raise awareness and capacity in information technology in Vietnam,” said Ha Lam Tu Quynh, who is the director of communications and public relations in charge of Vietnam at Google Asia Pacific. “We believe children in particular will be the best creators of the future.”
She was referring to a tech revolution that has been a buzz word around the Communist country, encompassing all kinds of new tech, from the internet of things, to big data analysis.
Google, which did not disclose how much it is spending, is far from alone in stressing its corporate social responsibility, allowing firms to do good or look good, or both. It would not hurt to earn some goodwill with Vietnam, which has been overhauling its legislative and regulatory system in a way that has not always gone over well with tech companies.
Last year the Southeast Asian country pressed local advertisers to boycott Facebook and Google’s YouTube because they had permitted content critical of the state. In a more recent example, the National Assembly is debating a draft law on cyber security that would require businesses to store data inside the borders and delete online information that is deemed objectionable.
Vietnamese students surf Internet and play online games at an Internet cafe in Hanoi, Vientam on Wednesday March 31, 2010. Google Inc. says it has found another case of cyber attacks being used to suppress political dissent, this time to silence opponents of a Vietnamese mining project that involves a state-run Chinese company. (AP Photo/Tran Van Minh)
The U.S. embassy in Hanoi expressed “concerns about Vietnam’s proposed cyber security law, including the impact of localization requirements and restrictions on cross-border services for the future development and growth of Vietnam’s economy.”
Also contributing to the child-friendly computer lessons, with laptops and technical support, is the Dariu Foundation, which focuses on micro-finance and education for low-income people in Vietnam, Myanmar, and India. Nguyen Van Hanh, the director of the Dariu Foundation, noted that roughly 65 percent of those now in primary school will be doing jobs someday that do not exist right now, citing data from the World Economic Forum.
“With all of the economic and social changes brought on by technology, we do not know exactly the kind of skills children will need in order to develop and become citizens who contribute positively to the world in the future through work,” he said in discussing his group’s participation in the Scratch classes. “However, we can be sure that today’s children need to be equipped with many skills to adapt to the challenges and the requirements of the digital era.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology invented the simple Scratch language so that computer programming would be more widely accessible. First-time programmers do not type dense lines of code, but rather use logic to design things like animation and games, dragging colorful objects and command labels around the software interface. Even an 8-year-old can do it, and in fact they do.
So will 1,200 public school students in the Vietnamese metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City and the nearby delta provinces of Vinh Long and Tien Giang.
The initiative “Programming the Future with Google,” also includes digital training for 30 local school teachers, will run from now through August.
Traveling around the world has now become so much more convenient. Booking flights and accommodations can now be done with a swipe of your finger on your smartphone. Aside from this, booking a place to stay has become more affordable. There is a multitude of options out there, from 5-star hotels, backpacker hostels, and the most popular home-sharing service Airbnb.
Airbnb is an online marketplace and hospitality service for people who are looking to rent or lease lodgings for their travels. Airbnb offers a wide variety of spaces that a customer can choose from; apartments, holiday cottages, homestays, even hotel rooms and hostel beds. Although Airbnb doesn’t own real estate properties, they have become one of the biggest accommodation providers.
When traveling, two of the major concerns are safety and security. Airbnb offers Host Protection Insurance, but this is far from comprehensive. The insurance is similar to premise liability where the establishment covers liability and damage claims when a customer, in the case of Airbnb, the renter, gets into an accident while inside the home that they are renting. The insurance also covers any injury that the renter causes inside the property, meaning that if the renter accidentally injured another tenant in the apartment complex where they are renting.
Airbnb’s insurance doesn’t cover the host’s personal property. If a renter damages any of the furniture, fixture, or other belongings of the host, Airbnb will not be liable for its repair or replacement. Their insurance also doesn’t cover issues that may cause damage or injury to the guests like molds or bed bugs. If you’re planning on becoming an Airbnb host, it’s still best to get a homeowner’s insurance for instances when Airbnb’s coverage won’t be able to cover the cost of injury or damages. Here’s the full information about Airbnb’s Host Protection Insurance.
If you’re a guest who plans on renting an Airbnb space, you should always take precautions, especially when you’re traveling abroad. Here are some tips to help you stay safe and secure:
1. Read and digest. – When looking at an Airbnb listing, it’s best that you take time to read about the place you plan to rent. Check the place’s description, the list of amenities available for guests, and the house rules. Check the reviews; this is especially helpful for you to know what previous renters’ experience was like during their stay. Take time to check the host’s verified phone numbers, social media accounts, and references. You can also look for hosts who already has an excellent standing on Airbnb.
2. Keep all transactions within Airbnb. – Whether you’re using the website or the app, it’s best that you keep all of your communications and transactions within Airbnb; this ensures that Airbnb can monitor everything that is going on between you and the host. Airbnb can also safeguard your personal information better when you stay within their network, helping them to lower the risk of fraud and other security issues.
3. No cash transactions. – Although Airbnb charges additional fees (percentage and reservation fees), it’s still best to use their website or app to book your accommodation instead of paying your chosen host with cash. These fees enable Airbnb to protect you or the host in case something untoward happens during your stay.
